In Memoriam

July 01, 2008

Just a quick note to let you all know that I'm not dead or in the Witness Protection Program. I apologize for neglecting the blog the last few days - unfortunately, I've got a lot on my plate right now and I've been too busy and distracted to do any blogging. As some of you may know, I lost my job recently, and in addition to searching for a new job I'm also in a bit of a financial bind at the moment so I'm having to address that as well. I don't know how much time I'll have for blogging over the next couple of days, but I'll try to find at least a few moments in the evening to post something, so it's still worth your time to stop in and visit every now and then. Lord knows there's plenty to talk about! Thanks to all of you who have been regular visitors to the blog. I'll do my best to try and keep you entertained.

June 29, 2008

The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

By now, just about everyone has seen John "The Suburban Cowboy" Cornyn's embarrasingly bad campaign video that aired at the Texas Republican Convention, in which Cornyn dresses up like the cowboy character from the Village People and goes hunting fow wabbits. Or something. Anyway, Rick Noriega's campaign has released a video response to the Cornyn promo:

June 27, 2008

I'll be out of town this weekend, so there probably won't be much activity on the blog for the next few days. In my absence, I strongly encourage you to check out the blogs listed in my blogroll, especially our Texas bloggers. I hope you all have a great weekend.

A newly released poll by Texas Lyceum [PDF] offers some encouraging news for both Barack Obama and Rick Noriega as they face an uphill battle to win their respective races. The poll of likely voters shows John McCain leading Barack Obama by only 5 points, 43%-38%, with 17% of Texas voters saying they are undecided about who will get their vote. Ralph Nader and Bob Barr were included in the poll, but only got 1% each - and Nader will probably not be on the ballot in Texas. With McCain polling well under 50% and a large number of undecideds, Obama has a lot of room for growth and a legitimate chance at actually winning Texas, if the results of this poll are to be taken seriously.

The same poll shows Rick Noriega faring even better, showing John Cornyn with a lead of only 2 points, 38%-36%, and 24% of respondents identifying themselves as undecided. Noriega has a problem with name recognition and a significant cash disadvantage, but his fundraising appears to be picking up steam lately and he's bound to get a boost from the Obama campaign investing resources in Texas for the general election. John Cornyn polling at only 38% is a significant sign of weakness for an incumbent, so there's a lot of good news to be taken from this poll for Rick Noriega.

But can this poll be trusted? The party splits for the poll are 44% Democratic to 32% Republican, indicating that Democrats were oversampled, unless there's been some huge, dramatic shift in party affiliation since the last election. And 32% of the respondents were Hispanic, indicating that they might also have been oversampled - Hispanics are about 35% of the state population, but have historically tended to lag significantly behind whites and blacks in voter participation. The poll results are encouraging, but should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

According to news reports, the infrared security system at the Governor’s Mansion may have been broken for two months before the fire. Or maybe the DPS troopers assigned to guard duty had simply been led to believe it was broken, like nearly half of the surveillance cameras were. The troopers complained about the lack of a backup security plan and proposed posting additional guards on the grounds until the surveillance technology could be repaired. Their bosses rejected the idea, citing the cost of overtime pay for the officers.

No one wants to admit this penny-wise policy was handed down from on high by Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and House Speaker Tom Craddick. But this much is certain — what might have cost taxpayers a few thousand dollars in extra pay for troopers may now cost taxpayers $100 million or more to rebuild the landmark. Not to mention the $1.8 million in taxpayer money that had already been spent on the renovation project that was underway before the fire.

As the APR points out, the burnt-out Governor's Mansion is a poignant metaphor for the sorry state of affairs here in Texas after six years of exclusive Republican control:

Nearly three years after Hurricane Rita, about one dozen of the many thousands of taxpaying citizens victimized by the storm have received the aid they applied for. But a private firm whose lobbyist used to be the Governor’s chief of staff was given a multi-million-dollar contract to conduct the relief effort — if and when there ever is one.

“Too little, too late” state policies imposed by political leaders in Austin inevitably lead to “even less, even later” results for the taxpayers who foot the bills and expect vital services to be safeguarded.

Like the inability to get aid to the victims of Hurricane Rita nearly three years later. Like underfunding public schools while pushing plan to funnel tax dollars into private-school voucher schemes support by campaign contributors. Like making children’s health care less accessible, not more, and college harder to afford, not easier. Like looking the other way as powerful power companies increase electricity costs while Big Insurance takes state regulators to court to prevent them from stopping unwarranted rate hikes. Like the two years during which political leadership tried to keep the lid on brewing troubles in the Texas Youth Commission until they erupted into violence.

Under Rick Perry and the Republicans, Texas is a national laughingstock. Unfortunately we're stuck with Governor Goodhair for two more years, but we have an opportunity to begin the long process of righting the Lone Star State by taking back the Texas House of Representatives this November. The down-ballot races may not excite us like the presidential and Senate races do, but the outcomes of those races have a profound effect on our daily lives, so we can't afford to ignore them.

I like Kinky as a personality and a musician, and I certainly think he's well within his rights if he wants to run - if he does, I'd certainly rather see him do so as a Democrat than as an independent again (mostly because I don't want to see him cockblocking the Democratic nominee in 2010 like he did in 2006). But he shouldn't be taken seriously as a politician, and he isn't somebody that we as Democrats can count on to stand up for or promote our values. He supports organized prayer in schools, supports posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, supports putting up a wall between Texas and Mexico, and despite his expressed support for gay marriage, he couldn't be bothered to vote against the state constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. I certainly don't think he's a racist, but I hold no illusions about the fact that because of some of the statements that he's made in the past, African-Americans at best will have little or no enthusiasm for him as a candidate, and at worst will stay home on election day or even vote against him if he's at the top of the 2010 ballot. Kinky would certainly get more than a few votes from people due to his name and celebrity status, but he's just not viable as a general election candidate, and if he runs as a Democrat in 2010, we would be foolish to give him the party's nomination.

You know your presidential campaign is in trouble when members of your own party are going out of their way to associate themselves with your opponent, as seen in this recent campaign ad for Republican Senator Gordon Smith:

For the record, of course, Obama's campaign is making it clear that he supports the Democratic candidate, Jeff Merkley, in this race. But this ad is a perfect illustration of how political fortunes have changed in this country. In the past, you might have seen ads for Democrats trying to tie themselves to a popular Republican incumbent, such as Ronald Reagan, or Dubya back when his approval rating was in the 60's and above. But I don't recall ever seeing an ad like this where a Republican is trying to associate himself with a Republican presidential candidate who hasn't even been elected yet, much less a Democrat, elected or otherwise. Strange days indeed...

The Supreme Court has come out with a number of key rulings in the last few days as it closes out its term until October:

Probably the most important ruling issued by the Supreme Court was its 5-4 decision striking down the DC gun ban and affirming an individual right to keep and bear arms. Speaking for the majority, Antonin Scalia stated that the Constitution doesn't allow outright prohibitions of the sort attempted by the District of Columbia. At the same time, the individual right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited: laws against concealed weapons, prohibiting felons and the mentally ill from gun ownership, or imposing regulations on the sale of arms, are not necessarily jeopardized by an acknowledgment of individual gun ownership rights.

It's probably not going to be too often that I extol the wisdom of a ruling by the Roberts Supreme Court, and rarer still when I find myself agreeing with Antonin Scalia of all people, but I think that the court's ruling on this case was absolutely correct. I know I probably risk disapproval from some of my fellow liberals by saying this, but I don't see how it's consistent with liberalism to support banning gun ownership, or to argue that the right to own guns is collective rather than individual. In so many other areas, we have always supported a broad interpretation of the bill of rights. We've argued for an implied right to privacy based on the 4th Amendment in support of the right to use birth control, the right to have an abortion, and the right of gays and lesbians to have sex with one another. We've argued that the 1st Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech is not limited to spoken words and extends broadly to freedom of expression in any form, including flag-burning. Within this philosophical context, it is hugely hypocritical to parse away the individual right to keep and bear arms based on a tortured interpretation of the text of the 2nd Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The statement about a well-regulated militia being necessary for security is not a qualifying statement, it's a logical justification for the right to bear arms - a preamble, if you will. If the First Amendment had explicitly stated that freedom of speech was necessary for citizens to criticize their government in a democratic society, we as liberals would fight vigorously against any attempt to limit freedom of expression to cases where political speech is involved. Likewise, if we want to be philosophically consistent, we should drop the whole idea of reframing gun rights as collective rather than individual.

Like any individual right, the right to bear arms has reasonable limits that aren't inconsistent with the general recognition of the right itself. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, because individual freedom of speech doesn't trump public safety. By the same token, as this court has argued, recognizing an individual right to bear arms doens't prohibit the government from enacting reasonable restrictions on that right. Almost nobody thinks that people should be allowed to own tactical nukes (although there may be a few NRA members who would have no problem with that), and most people would agree with the idea of keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals and the insane. The key word is "reasonable": it's reasonable to want to keep guns out of the hands of people who have a demonstrated inability to exercise their right to own guns responsibly, but not to keep them out of the hands of everyone. Gun control advocates should not view today's ruling as a defeat, but rather as a challenge to reframe their efforts to promote gun safety within a context that is more amenable to gun enthusiasts and others who support gun ownership rights.

In another ruling that I agree with, from yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute someone for raping a child, reserving the death penalty for murderers and those who commit crimes against the state. This time, I'm at least siding with the liberal wing of the court against the conservative wing - to be honest, it feels kind of gross being on the same side as Antonin Scalia in a philosophical argument. As someone who comes from a state (Texas) where 33 wrongfully convicted prisoners (and counting) have been freed since 2001, I'm glad that the Supreme Court has done away with the death penalty for child rape. From a philosophical standpoint, I think it should be done away with for all cases - putting aside the very real and very substantial risk of wrongful conviction, it should not be the business of government at any level to kill people in the absence of a clear and present danger to human life. A convicted killer (or other criminal) who has been locked up does not constitute a danger to human life because they're in jail, so there is no need to kill them and thus no legitimate justification for doing so.

And having said this, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of disagreeing with Barack Obama, who I think is dead wrong in coming out against this ruling. Yes, child rape is heinous, but if we're going to have a death penalty at all, which he thinks we should, we should at least reserve it for cases where a human life has been taken. Allowing it in the case of child rape opens up a pandora's box of allowing the death penalty any time the public's sense of outrage is piqued, including cases like child rape where the very question whether a crime has been committed is often hard to ascertain. For example, if we're going to execute people for raping children, will we also execute them for allegedly shaking a child to death?

And now, it's back to disagreeing with the Supreme Court. In a depressing reminder that the Court is stacked with right-wing Republicans, Wednesday saw a ruling that slashes the amount of punitive damages Exxon will be required to pay for the Exxon Valdez spill back in the 1980's. This ruling reinforces the idea that huge, highly profitable corporations won't be held responsible when they engage in actions that jeopardize the life, health and welfare of the general public. This ruling is a perfect example of why we need a Democrat in the White House, to appoint judges who aren't beholden to big business.

And today, the Court ruled 5-4 that the so-called "millionaire's amendment," which allows candidates to receive larger contributions when their wealthy opponents spend heavily from their own money, is unconstitutional. Today's decision is being framed as an attempt to treat people equally under the law, but I believe that there is a broader interest in leveling the playing field to minimize the natural advantage that the ultra-rich have in financing their own political campaigns when they run against people who aren't rolling in money. Today's ruling makes it harder for people who aren't multi-millionaires to compete politically against people who are, and that's not a good thing in a representative democracy.